Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Design Intelligence, Inc.

Nathan W Everett

Michael B Orr

Steven E Weil

Joseph Spencer King

Marc B McDonald

Geoffrey Von Limbach

Gay Linda Gardner

Keith S Brintzenhofe

David C Brown

Joseph D King

A three-way separation of information in a document includes content, design and media aspects. This division supports automatic rendering to multiple forms of media such as print, Intranet, Internet, and OLE embedding. In a particular embodiment, the document is separated into its content, design and media aspects. Content, design, a medium specification are identified and layout is performed as per the three aspects. In one embodiment, an information data structure is provided that includes three tree structures: a design tree, a content tree and a media tree. A media division data structure is associated with a parent component in a composition. The parent component has a parent region in a medium and has child components. Each child component is associated with a child region of the medium. The media division data structure provides rules, properties and values for performing layout in a particular region of the medium. Layout may be performed on a server.

Automatic layout of content in a design for a medium

A system and method automatically determines appropriate font characteristics for different display mediums and different readability parameters in any language. A method includes determining font characteristics by receiving data including a font identifier and a language identifier, producing a representative line of type in the identified language and with the identified font, measuring characteristics of the representative line of type, and normalizing the measurements across a plurality of fonts and a plurality of languages. In an embodiment, an international translator is used to receive the data including the font identifier and the language identifier and the received data can include text in a language. The normalizing refers to widths of portions of the text called a 'black river,' which is used to identify plotted measured characteristics to determine an average grayness across a perpendicular to a reading direction. The average grayness enables comparisons to pluralities of fonts and languages.

International font measurement system and method

A system and method determines an optimum size for a font for readability. A method determines font characteristics by determining a character density for the font and multiplying the character density by a sharpest focusable area of the viewing medium. The method further includes varying the character density according to a range in a number of clusters per fixation to determine a maximum font size and a minimum font size. In an embodiment, the character density is a ratio of a number of clusters per em in the font to a number of visible clusters within a predetermined foveal angle. The predetermined foveal angle can be a field of vision for sharpest focus of an eye or a reader specific foveal angle that reflects the reader's visual acuity, taking into consideration macular degeneration, vision impairments, vision sharpness, tunnel vision, eye disease, near sightedness, far sightedness, dyslexia, and astigmatism.

International automatic line height system and method

A scheme data structure is used for applying a set of coordinated attributes to any number of components within a composition such as a document, Internet web page, computer screen etc. A scheme data structure allows a user to easily apply variations of professionally designed font, color, graphic, paragraph and other schemes to a composition. The data structure includes a scheme instance category indicating a type of scheme and a number of attributes corresponding to the scheme instance category. The structure has a number of scheme slots, and each scheme slot can be associated with zero or more components of the composition. Each of the scheme slots is arranged to hold a distinct value for each of the attributes. Thus, for each of the scheme slots, the scheme instance data structure may be used to apply values of attributes to the components of the composition associated with each scheme slot. Each scheme instance data structure may also have a number of levels. Each level contains a complete set of values for the attributes of that scheme. User input is used to determine which level should be applied to each component. A user specifies an amount value indicating number of components affected and a diversity value indicating diversity of scheme attributes affecting the components. A threshold value for each component indicates a range of difficulty for changing default values for attributes of that component. A method also applies values in a determined scheme level to components of a composition in response to user input.

Flexible schemes for applying properties to information in a medium

One aspect of the present invention provides for a three-way separation of the information in a document. In a particular embodiment, the document is separated into its content, design and media aspects. In one embodiment, an information data structure is provided that includes three tree structures. A design tree structure represents the design of a composition and includes design components. A content tree structure represents the content of the composition and includes content elements. A media tree structure represents the selected medium of the composition and includes media components. The content and media tree structures are linked to the design tree structure. The design tree structure, the content tree structure and the media tree structure are unique but utilize at least some common components from one another. A component data structure represents a content element within a composition. The component includes a content facet, a design facet and a media facet. The content facet includes content properties related to the content element. A design facet includes a design parent pointer to a parent design component and design properties. A media facet includes a media parent pointer to a parent media component and region properties indicating a region occupied by the content element within the composition. A media division data structure is associated with a parent component in a media tree structure of a composition. The parent component has a parent region in a medium and has child components. Each child component is associated with a child region of the medium. The media division data structure includes a link to the parent component, an indicator of the number of child components, an orientation flag and a fit value expressing a relationship between the child regions and the parent region.

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Nathan W Everett